Ukraine’s power grid crippled by Russia strikes

UKRAINE’S electricity grid operator has warned of hourslong power outages as Russia zeroed in on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with renewed artillery and missile attacks that have interrupted supply to as much as 40% of the population at the onset of winter.

Ukrenergo said outages could last for several hours with colder temperatures putting additional pressure on energy networks.

“You always need to prepare for the worst. We understand that the enemy wants to destroy our power system in general, to cause long outages,” Ukrenergo’s chief executive Volodymyr Kudrytskyi told Ukrainian state television on Friday.

“We need to prepare for possible long outages, but at the moment we are introducing schedules that are planned and will do everything to ensure that the outages are not very long.” The capital of Kyiv is already facing a “huge deficit in electricity”, mayor Vitali Klitschko told the Associated Press. Some 1.5 million to two million people – about half the city’s population – are periodically plunged into darkness as authorities switch electricity from one district to another.

“It’s a critical situation,” he said. Mr Klitschko said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military planners are apparently hoping “to bring us, everyone, to depression”, to make people feel unsafe and “to think about, ‘Maybe we give up.”’ But it won’t work, he said.

“It’s wrong, it’s (a) wrong vision of Putin,” he said. “After every rocket attack, I talk to the people, to simple civilians. They (are) not depressed. They were angry, angry and ready to stay and defend our houses, our families and our future.”

Mr Kudrytskyi said the power situation at critical facilities such as hospitals and schools has been stabilised. In the north-east Kharkiv region, overnight shelling and missile strikes targeted “critical infrastructure” and damaged energy equipment, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.

Eight people including energy company crews and police officers were injured trying to clear up the debris, he said.

Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy and power facilities in the past weeks have left millions without heating and electricity, fuelling fears of what the dead of winter will bring.

Energy infrastructure had again been targeted on Thursday after Russia two days earlier unleashed a nationwide barrage of more than 100 missiles and drones that knocked out power to 10 million people.

Those attacks have also had a knock-on effect on neighbouring countries like Moldova, where a halfdozen cities across that country experienced temporary blackouts.

Russian forces unleashed the breadth of their arsenal to attack Ukraine’s south east, employing drones, rockets, heavy artillery and warplanes, resulting in the death of at least six civilians and the wounding of an equal number in the past 24 hours, the office of the president reported. In the Zaporizhzhia region, part of which remains under Russian control, artillery pounded 10 towns and villages.